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January
New Guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics on Juice
At NC Pediatric Dentistry, we like to pass along information we believe is important to living a healthy life. The nutrients we provide our infants, babies and children affect them for a lifetime. Good healthy eating habits last a lifetime.
Based on a new guideline from the American Academy of Pediatrics, children should not be given fruit juice before they are a year old. Doctors recommend infants under a year old be given only breast milk or formula to drink.
The AAP has “toughened its stance against juice, recommending that the drink be banned entirely from a baby’s diet during the first year” based on rising rates of obesity and concerns about tooth cavities. The new report, published online in Pediatrics, also advised restricting fruit juice to four ounces daily for 1- to 3-year-olds, and six ounces a day for 4- to 6-year-olds.”
“There is no nutritional indication to give fruit juice to infants younger than 6 months,” the guidelines note. If a baby fills up on juice it could sideline other important nutrients they need for healthy growth, including the protein, fat, calcium and iron that come in breast milk and formula.
Children ages 1 to 4 need one cup of fruit a day, and up to 4 ounces of that can come from 100 percent fruit juice, the recommendations say.
And avoid serving juice in a bottle or “sippy” cup, as children tend to carry them around all day and sip from them, and combined with saliva, can promote the chance of tooth decay.
It’s the first update to the group’s guidelines on fruit juice for kids in 16 years!